Purpose-In order to secure a proper execution of sporting competitions, national governing bodies of professional football leagues apply specific regulatory procedures. In this context, special focus is placed on requirements that are supposed to ensure financial stability of clubs. They, in turn, help avoid negative economic externalities, i.e. the problem that financial difficulties from one club can affect other clubs and stakeholders due to the interdependent relationships of the competition. These regulations on a national level in European professional football leagues show several significant differences. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to comprehensively analyze financial regulatory procedures of professional football leagues to generate possible improvements of the regulations in detail. Design/methodology/approach-Using a document analysis of the regulation books of the English Premier League and German Bundesliga, this study compares the regulatory procedures of those important European professional football leagues. Further evaluation was performed through a qualitative content analysis to develop a category system including six categories with 72 criteria from deductive and inductive procedures. For more advanced coding an assessment scale was integrated. Findings-Compared to the Premier League, the regulation of the Bundesliga points to a more intensive regulation in all categories and across all analyzed indices. The results of both leagues partially reveal that assessment and monitoring requirements tend to be ineffective, which can substantially endanger the achievement of the whole monitoring process' aims. The intention to ensure the financial stability for securing the league competition can be missed in such a situation and negative economic externalities cannot be prevented effectively. Originality/value-For the first time, this study includes all relevant requirements of financial club assessment and monitoring. Thereby, an abstract comprehensive and systematic structure for professional team sports leagues is described and allows for a concrete international comparison of two European professional football leagues. At the end several approaches to improve the regulatory framework are provided.

Zusammenfassung Zur ordnungsgemäßen Durchführbarkeit des Spielbetriebs setzen die deutschen Profisportligen Li­zenzierungsverfahren ein. Dabei stehen insbesondere zur Eindämmung der Rattenrennen-Proble­matik und zur Sicherstellung der finanziellen Stabilität der teilnehmenden Klubs und damit zum Vermeiden negativer Externalitäten die finanzwirtschaftlichen Anforderungen im Fokus. In den ver­gangenen Jahren kam es trotz dieser Vorkehrungen in den fünf größten deutschen Profisportligen im Basketball, Eishockey, Fußball, Handball sowie Volleyball mehrfach zu finanziellen Schieflagen. Vor dem Hintergrund wird in diesem Beitrag die finanzwirtschaftliche Lizenzierung der Profisport­ligen anhand von sechs Haupt- und 62 Subkriterien strukturiert und umfassend analysiert. Ziel die­ser vergleichenden Untersuchung ist die Herausarbeitung von Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden sowie die Ableitung von Stärken und Schwächen. Aus sportökonomischer Perspektive werden auf dieser Basis Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten der Lizenzierungsverfahren entwickelt.